Obstacles to the energy transition: Material for photovoltaics, geothermal energy and the like is often scarce

Created: 05/23/2022, 05:25

By: Doris Richter

Not a matter of course: A craftsman installs solar panels on a roof.

Many customers currently have to wait a long time for this - material is missing.

(Iconic image) © Marijan Murat/dpa

Away from gas towards alternative energies.

But it's not going as fast as many would like.

The demand for photovoltaics, geothermal energy and wall boxes is increasing, but material is often scarce.

District – Many district citizens want to finally get rid of the old oil heating system, free themselves from the dependence on expensive gas through a geothermal connection, generate their own electricity with the help of a photovoltaic system and ideally charge their car with a wall box, a charging station in the garage or in the carport .

However, the energy revolution in one's own home cannot be implemented as quickly as some people would like.

Many projects require patience.

From gas to geothermal energy

Domestic geothermal energy is becoming increasingly popular in the Munich district.

There are already 13 geothermal sites in the district.

And more and more citizens want to go online.

At the municipal works in Oberhaching, for example, an exclamation mark on the homepage indicates that there is an increased demand for district heating connections.

There are currently around 200 new house connections in the order books for 2022/23.

Tendency: increasing daily.

"We will process all inquiries upon receipt, but the planning, capacities of the specialist companies, the construction site management, the coordination of the heating conversions, logically all of this does not work at the push of a button and not always on the desired date," says the municipal works.

We therefore ask for your understanding that not all inquiries can be processed immediately.

There is also a high demand from heating engineers, and it is difficult to find a tradesman who will install a new heating system in a timely manner.

Raw materials are still scarce and are becoming more and more expensive.

"For products such as sanitary parts, boilers, boilers, we get almost monthly price increases," says Renate Gojczyk from the Oberhachinger installation company of the same name.

And especially since the beginning of the Ukraine war, more and more customers want to get away from oil and gas.

electricity from the roof

Generating your own electricity with the help of a photovoltaic system is also very much in vogue.

"We are experiencing exponential growth in demand," says Sebastian Biegel, head of the Upper Bavaria region at the network operator Bayernwerk.

Bayernwerk operates two large customer centers in the district, in Unterschleißheim and Taufkirchen, each employing around 50 people.

"And we are intensively looking for additional staff," says Biegel.

In some cases, employees would work on Saturdays or colleagues from other regions would help out to meet demand.

The customer centers that were closed during the pandemic are now open again.

Each week, the two customer centers receive between 50 and 100 inquiries from private individuals about feeding electricity into the grid.

"And the complexity of the requirements has increased," explains Biegel.

Within eight weeks, Bayernwerk has to carry out what is known as a network compatibility test, i.e. to determine whether the system can be set up at all.

If so, a specialist company can install the system, and a technician from Bayernwerk is required to accept and install the meter.

"Although it is currently not easy to find a craftsman who will build the system and also have the required material delivered," says Biegel.

problems of the companies

Affected companies can sing a song about this.

"Customers are pounding us," says Harald Urbas from the Kirchheim-based company Pichlmaier Solare Energiesysteme, which among other things installs photovoltaic systems.

Even before that, the demand for the solar systems had increased enormously, "since the outbreak of war in January it has increased tenfold," says Urbas.

On the one hand, that is of course gratifying, the order books are full.

However, a lack of skilled workers and materials makes the company's work extremely difficult.

"Where there used to be three process steps, there are now ten," says Urban.

Because the material cannot be delivered, you sometimes have to place ten different orders for each customer order.

“You can see in an internet shop that something is available, click on it and then get the information that you can't get it after all.

It starts with the spax screw and extends to the inverter.

"You experience situations that I have never had in my long professional life," says Urbas.

“People put cash on the table because they absolutely want a photovoltaic system.” But at the moment you have to expect a waiting time of up to a year.

Sometimes suppliers can't deliver anything, sometimes it's up to customs, sometimes the logistics collapse.

The result: again and again you only see the metal skeleton on roofs, still without solar panels.

When will that change again?

Urbas doesn't dare to make any predictions.

Sometimes suppliers can't deliver anything, sometimes it's up to customs, sometimes the logistics collapse.

The result: again and again you only see the metal skeleton on roofs, still without solar panels.

When will that change again?

Urbas doesn't dare to make any predictions.

Sometimes suppliers can't deliver anything, sometimes it's up to customs, sometimes the logistics collapse.

The result: again and again you only see the metal skeleton on roofs, still without solar panels.

When will that change again?

Urbas doesn't dare to make any predictions.

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Everyone wants the wall box

The run on the wall boxes, the home charging stations for e-cars, is just as great.

"This topic is experiencing an incredible boom, above all due to state subsidies for e-mobility," says Sebastian Biegel.

In April, Bayernwerk recorded 466 registrations for charging devices in the district.

Two years earlier there were still 34 in the same period. The topic plays a major role in all new buildings.

"The underground car parks in newly built apartment buildings, where each parking space has its own wall box, are now the most energy-intensive part of the building," says Biegel.

A real challenge given the enormous amount of power that has to be available at the same time.

To make matters worse, there are currently often delivery bottlenecks for the wall boxes themselves.

We are also working on further improving the service.

"It would also be helpful to remove bureaucratic hurdles," says Biegel.

For example, to simplify the entry in the so-called market master data register of the Federal Network Agency, where all electricity generation locations must be registered.

"The energy supply as such will change completely, away from large solutions such as power plants towards more distributed energy generation," he is convinced.

"And we're still at the beginning."

More news from the district of Munich can be found here.